The controversy over whether or not AI belongs within the company boardroom seems to be over — a minimum of for these liable for producing income.
Seven in 10 enterprise income leaders now belief AI to commonly inform their enterprise selections, based on a sweeping new study launched by income intelligence firm Gong. The discovering marks a dramatic shift from simply two years in the past, when most organizations handled AI as an experimental know-how relegated to pilot applications and particular person productiveness hacks.
The analysis, primarily based on an evaluation of seven.1 million gross sales alternatives throughout greater than 3,600 corporations and a survey of over 3,000 international income leaders spanning the U.S., UK, Australia and Germany, paints an image of an business in speedy transformation. Organizations which have embedded AI into their core go-to-market methods are 65% extra more likely to improve their win charges than rivals nonetheless treating the know-how as non-obligatory.
“I do not suppose individuals delegate selections to AI, however they do depend on AI within the course of of creating selections,” Amit Bendov, Gong’s co-founder and chief govt, stated in an unique interview with VentureBeat. “People are making the choice, however they’re largely assisted.”
The excellence issues. Slightly than changing human judgment, AI has turn into what Bendov describes as a “second opinion” — a data-driven verify on the instinct and guesswork that has historically ruled gross sales forecasting and technique.
Slowing progress is forcing gross sales groups to squeeze extra from each rep
The timing of AI’s ascendance in income organizations is not any coincidence. The examine reveals a sobering actuality: After rebounding in 2024, common annual income progress amongst surveyed corporations decelerated to 16% in 2025, marking a three-percentage-point decline yr over yr. Gross sales rep quota attainment fell from 52% to 46% over the identical interval.
The wrongdoer, based on Gong’s evaluation, is not that salespeople are performing worse on particular person offers. Win charges and deal period remained constant. The issue is that representatives are working fewer alternatives — a discovering that means operational inefficiencies are consuming into promoting time.
This helps clarify why productiveness has rocketed to the highest of govt priorities. For the primary time within the examine’s historical past, growing the productiveness of current groups ranked because the number-one progress technique for 2026, leaping from fourth place the earlier yr.
“The main focus is on growing gross sales productiveness,” Bendov stated. “How a lot dollar-output per dollar-input?”
The numbers again up the urgency. Groups that commonly use AI instruments generate 77% extra income per consultant than those who do not — a niche Gong characterizes as a six-figure distinction per salesperson yearly.
Corporations are transferring past fundamental AI automation towards strategic decision-making
The character of AI adoption in gross sales has advanced significantly over the previous yr. In 2024, most income groups used AI for fundamental automation: Transcribing calls, drafting emails, updating CRM data. These use circumstances proceed to develop, however 2025 marked what the report calls a shift “from automation to intelligence.”
The variety of U.S. corporations utilizing AI for forecasting and measuring strategic initiatives jumped 50% yr over yr. These extra subtle functions — predicting deal outcomes, figuring out at-risk accounts, measuring which worth propositions resonate with completely different purchaser personas — correlate with dramatically higher outcomes.
Organizations within the ninety fifth percentile of economic influence from AI have been 2 to 4X extra more likely to have deployed these strategic use circumstances, based on the examine.
Bendov provided a concrete instance of how this performs out in observe. “Corporations have hundreds of offers that they roll up into their forecast,” he stated. “It was once primarily based solely on human sentiment, consider it or not. That is why lots of corporations miss their numbers: As a result of individuals say, ‘Oh, he advised me he’ll purchase,’ or ‘I feel I can most likely get this one.'”
AI adjustments that calculus by inspecting proof moderately than optimism. “Corporations now get a second opinion from AI on their forecasting, and that improves forecasting accuracy dramatically — 10 [or] 15% higher accuracy simply because it is evidence-based, not simply primarily based on human sentiment,” Bendov stated.
Income-specific AI instruments are dramatically outperforming general-purpose options
One of many examine’s extra provocative findings issues the kind of AI that delivers outcomes. Groups utilizing revenue-specific AI options — instruments constructed explicitly for gross sales workflows moderately than general-purpose platforms like ChatGPT — reported 13% larger income progress and 85% better industrial influence than these counting on generic instruments.
These specialised methods have been additionally twice as more likely to be deployed for forecasting and predictive modeling, the report discovered.
The discovering carries apparent implications for Gong, which sells exactly the sort of domain-specific platform. However the knowledge suggests an actual distinction in outcomes. Normal-purpose AI, whereas extra prevalent, typically creates what the report describes as a “blind spot” for organizations — significantly when staff undertake client AI instruments with out firm oversight.
Analysis from MIT means that whereas solely 59% of enterprise groups use private AI instruments like ChatGPT at work, the precise determine is probably going nearer to 90%. This shadow AI utilization poses safety dangers and creates fragmented know-how stacks that undermine the potential for organization-wide intelligence.
Most gross sales leaders consider AI will reshape their jobs moderately than remove them
Maybe essentially the most closely-watched query in any AI examine issues employment. The Gong analysis presents a extra nuanced image than the apocalyptic predictions that always dominate headlines.
When requested about AI’s three-year influence on income headcount, 43% of respondents stated they count on it to rework jobs with out lowering headcount — the most typical response. Solely 28% anticipate job eliminations, whereas 21% really foresee AI creating new roles. Simply 8% predict minimal influence.
Bendov frames the chance as reclaiming misplaced time. He cited Forrester research indicating that 77% of a sales representative’s time is spent on actions that do not contain clients — administrative work, assembly preparation, researching accounts, updating forecasts and inside briefings.
“AI can remove, ideally, 77% of the drudgery work that they are doing,” Bendov stated. “I do not suppose it essentially eliminates jobs. Persons are half productive proper now. Let’s make them absolutely productive, and no matter you are paying them will translate to a lot larger income.”
The transformation is already seen in position consolidation. Over the previous decade, gross sales organizations splintered into hyper-specialized capabilities: One individual qualifies leads, one other units appointments, a 3rd closes offers, a fourth handles onboarding. The outcome was clients interacting with 5 or 6 completely different individuals throughout their shopping for journey.
“Which isn’t an excellent purchaser expertise, as a result of each time I meet a brand new individual that may not have the total context, and it’s extremely inefficient for corporations,” Bendov stated. “Now with AI, you may have one individual do all this, or a lot of this.”
At Gong itself, sellers now generate 80% of their very own appointments as a result of AI handles the prospecting legwork, Bendov stated.
American corporations are adopting AI 18 months sooner than their European counterparts
The examine reveals a notable divide in AI adoption between the U.S. and Europe. Whereas 87% of U.S. corporations now use AI of their income operations, with one other 9% planning adoption inside a yr, the UK trails by 12 to 18 months. Simply 70% of UK corporations presently use AI, with 22% % planning near-term adoption — figures that mirror U.S. knowledge from 2024.
Bendov stated the sample displays a broader historic tendency for enterprise know-how traits to cross the Atlantic with a delay. “It is all the time like that,” he stated. “Even when the web was taking off within the U.S., Europe was a step behind.”
The hole is not everlasting, he famous, and Europe generally leads on know-how adoption — cellular funds and messaging apps like WhatsApp gained traction there earlier than the U.S. — however for AI particularly, the American market stays forward.
Gong says a decade of AI growth provides it an edge over Salesforce and Microsoft
The findings arrive as Gong navigates an more and more crowded market. The corporate, which not too long ago surpassed $300 million in annual recurring income, faces potential competitors from enterprise software program giants like Salesforce and Microsoft, each of that are embedding AI capabilities into their platforms.
Bendov argues that Gong’s decade of AI growth creates a considerable barrier to entry. The corporate’s structure includes three layers: a “income graph” that aggregates buyer knowledge from CRM methods, emails, calls, movies and internet indicators; an intelligence layer combining massive language fashions (LLMs) with roughly 40 proprietary small language fashions; and workflow functions constructed on prime.
“Anyone that will wish to construct one thing like that — it is not a small function, it is 10 years in growth—would want first to construct the income graph,” Bendov stated.
Slightly than viewing Salesforce and Microsoft as threats, Bendov characterised them as companions, pointing to each corporations’ participation in Gong’s current person convention to debate agent interoperability. The rise of MCP (Model Context Protocol) help and consumption-based pricing fashions means clients can combine AI brokers from a number of distributors moderately than committing to a single platform.
The actual query is whether or not AI will increase the gross sales career or hole it out
The report’s implications lengthen past gross sales departments. If AI can rework income operations — lengthy thought-about a relationship-driven, human-centric perform — it raises questions on which different enterprise processes is perhaps subsequent.
Bendov sees the potential for enlargement moderately than contraction. Drawing an analogy to digital images, he famous that whereas digital camera producers suffered, the entire variety of images taken exploded as soon as smartphones made images easy.
“If AI makes promoting easy, I might see a world [with] perhaps ten occasions extra jobs than we have now now,” stated Bendov.” It is costly and inefficient at the moment, but when it turns into as straightforward as taking a photograph, the business might really develop and create alternatives for individuals of various talents, from completely different areas.”
For Bendov, who co-founded Gong in 2015 when AI was nonetheless a tough promote to non-technical enterprise customers, the present second represents one thing he waited a decade to see. Again then, mentioning AI to gross sales executives appeared like science fiction. The corporate struggled to boost cash as a result of the underlying know-how barely existed.
“After we began the corporate, we have been born as an AI firm, however we needed to virtually cover AI,” Bendov recalled. “It was intimidating.”
Now, seven out of 10of those self same executives say they belief AI to assist run their enterprise. The know-how that after needed to be disguised has turn into the one factor no person can afford to disregard.
